Cooperative Care

I've seen several articles about "cooperative care," that is, allowing animals to take part in the process of delivering their medical or grooming needs. Whether you are training an animal to remain calm for vaccines or xrays, or having them hold still for a nail trim, giving them the opportunity to be part of the process, make choices, and see the consequences, isn't really all that novel of an idea.  For years when I worked in the zoo environment, we taught animals to participate voluntarily in their own care and husbandry. Training bears to offer an arm for a vaccine or training a dolphin to offer a fin for a blood draw is something that zoo animal caretakers routinely work on.  When it comes to our companion animals, however, it seems that this notion of cooperative care has fallen by the wayside. Giving animals choices and the opportunity to escape if they become overwhelmed is one way to avoid undue stress and escalating aggression.  Here's an example.

Let's say you have a Labrador who suffers from repeated ear infections.  Ear infections hurt and many dogs resist the ear exams and cleanings as well as the medication that must be put in twice daily until the infection is resolved. Owners end up wrestling with their dogs to clean the ears and medicate them, often resulting in more medication on themselves the floor and the walls than in the dog's ears!  If, instead, owners train their dogs to rest their heads on a pillow in order to receive head petting and treats, and then move on to ear exams, cleanings, and medicating with their head on the pillow, then the animal is learning that it has a choice.  They consent to put their head on the pillow and remain there in order to receive the final reward.  If they are taught to do this, they also learn that they can lift their head off of the pillow and move away at any time without consequence, but doing so also means that there will be no treats or petting. So, is the dog really making a choice or giving consent?  Perhaps not since we are in essence asking them to put up with an aversive stimuli. However, by pairing that aversive stimuli with a high value reinforcer (food and attention), we are giving them a choice; all behavior is choice. In fact, you can give dogs choices with regard to tasks and base the reinforcers that you give them on the difficulty level of the tasks.  Thus, putting the chin on the pillow for pats and a simple ear exam could be assigned a smaller or less desirable reinforcer (say, a smaller or less valuable treat), than the reinforcer given for submitting to an ear cleaning and medication. They still need the ability to say "Stop!" and we must provide an escape in order for this to be cooperative medical care.

So, what about just smearing peanut butter on the wall of the shower and letting your dog lick that off while you clean and medicate their ears?  The peanut butter is high value, but you are doing nothing more than distracting your dog from the task.  You may get the job done faster this way, but you may also get to the point where this no longer works and you can't get your dog into the shower stall no matter how much peanut butter you spread on the wall! The moral of this story? Dogs like to predict what is happening to them, not be surprised.

Here's the bottom line:  If you want to be able to trim your dog's nails without a lot of drama, you need to train them to do so willingly.  Train them to offer a paw first.  Build up to holding and squeezing the paw without them pulling away.  If they pull away, the treats and attention stop.  I know it can be slow going and maybe you only clip one or two nails (or maybe even just one paw!) each day, but over time, you end up with a dog who is less agitated and aroused by nail trims and more likely to cooperate in them because he has a choice.

As always, if you have questions about your pet's behavior, you know where to find me.

I have trained Ozzie to offer his paw for me to dremmel his nails. This took time and patience to do as he was initially terrified of the sound of the dremmel. You can see a small treat on the floor next to the dremmel. Ozzie looks down at that treat while I dremmel his nails.  He knows he can have that treat and more for completing the nail dremmeling process.  He also knows that if it becomes too much, he can walk away, but there won't be any treats for him in that case.